Athira Nikathil’s play Sylvia opens with the young Sylvia Plath meeting Ted Hughes, whom she would later marry. What follows is an intense life story of the American poet that rises and dips like a poem. Athira attempts to bring to life the person and poet who Sylvia was.
Inspired by Sylvia, a 2003 biopic on Plath, Athira dips into the poet’s complex personal and literary life to create a narrative that does justice to her persona. “I watched the biopic on her, spent hours researching her, read and re-read her poetry, listened to scratchy podcasts of Sylvia’s and of her children and mother… before taking on this project,” says Athira. She employs music, dance, poetry and literature as her main theatrical devices.
